Positive vs Negative

It is Sunday morning and on my walk yesterday I was thinking about writing on the blog and wondering how I would entitle it, as it turns out the day got away from me and Simon beat me to it last night. I read Simons entry this morning and was amazed at just how positive it was and I told him so, he said 'Oh I forgot that I was going to write that we had both hit the wall and that is why I am on holidays a week sooner than I had planned'.

So this is where we stand - EXHAUSTED! I am so grateful for Simons wisdom, last weekend just before we went away he said out of the blue I am going to finish work a week earlier and I was quite surprised, but encouraged him in it and as the week went on I saw the wisdom in his decision. Oliver finished steroids almost a week ago, but this is always an exhausting time, this time especially because he is wanting to be walking but unable to do so on his own, made even more difficult by the cast he had on his arm, not to mention the fact that Oliver has had a cold now for 2 weeks and I dont see it going away anytime soon as what does he have to fight it? I found myself wiping his nose every 5 minutes, picking him up regularly and bending over helping him to walk - its no wonder I couldnt stay in bed this morning when I got the chance as I had a sore back.

I was reluctant to leave our child in this state to go away and in fact made the decision to cancel it just a few days before, but both Simon and I seemed so flat after I made that decision and I knew we had both been looking forward to it and that we needed the break and to assuage my guilt, I told myself that we would be better carers for having the break, which is true, although after only being back a couple of hours, we felt like we needed to go away again. Nanna & Grandad did really well although Sunday morning was particularly tough as Oliver got them up at 5:15 and then would not go back down for a sleep until 10:30 when we arrived home. I then felt that Oliver was a bit toey for the next few days, crying when we put him down or when he saw other people and I couldnt help wondering if he thought we were going to leave again? We think this is why he now screams his head off when we try and put him to bed at Nanna's, he kept it going for an hour the other night, even with reassurance from us, although because he has been unwell he hasnt really slept much anywhere else, so it could also be that.

During steroid time I found myself taking Oliver out because it seemed far easier to deal with him in the car or in his pram, where he was content than his constant neediness at home. Needless to say come Tuesday afternoon I had a sore throat and felt exhausted. So much so that Simon took Oliver to the hospital on his own Wednesday and I got some extra bedrest.

So our plan for this week is to rest. Simon has agreed to look after Oliver more so I can go back to bed or do the relaxing things that I enjoy - reading, watching dvd's & doing crosswords. My concern is that Simon too is exhausted, so I have asked him to let me know when he needs a break and perhaps we will do half days each.

We did have good news regarding Olivers treatment on Wednesday and that is that they are postponing his Christmas Eve treatment to New Years Eve, which is a relief, otherwise we would have been dealing with a steroidal monster on Christmas Day. Christmas for us looks to be fairly relaxing, which is just what we need, the 3 of us will spend the morning together and then head to Mum & Dads for lunch with a small number of family as opposed to the giant family bash at our place last Christmas.

So what do I look forward to? I look forward to winding down and relaxing more, to spending family time with my husband and my son and I do look forward to celebrating Christmas. The one thing I have found that comes with winding down is the grief and for me I am finding that it comes in waves. Speaking of waves, Oliver has learnt to wave and he was waving at the rubbish truck the other day and I felt overwhelming sadness that my innocent little boy is battling cancer. Then last night after getting angry with McLeods daughters for killing off Alex and leaving Stevie devastated and shedding a few tears for her, I then found myself going to check on Oliver and sobbing myself. I find that the first emotion I feel is anger and then the sadness and the tears come. I ended up going in to comfort him as he was unsettled and had tears all over my face and this super loving little boy who gives the 2nd best cuddles in the world after his Daddy, gave me a big cuddle, then sat back in my arms and was looking me in the face, touching my face, almost like he was wiping away my tears, putting his fingers in my mouth also, which caused me to giggle which then led him to giggle. After I put him down the real sobbing began as I wondered how this little boy who has been through so much can be so loving.

So this might be more than you bargained for in reading our blog today, but this is the raw truth as I like to tell it. Two positive things that I would like to share is that on those hard days last Monday and Tuesday, my Dad came and took Oliver for a walk in the pram to give me a break which was great. The other thing is that we have been going to a biblestudy group with people from our church (Whitfords) and it is a place where I feel like we belong. We were due to go there for the first time right before Oliver was diagnosed, so they have been praying for us every step of the way. We had our last study night the Tuesday before last and we all shared how the year had been and I valued being able to share openly and honestly with this group of people and hear their stories. We then had a bbq together last Sunday and again I felt so loved and welcomed by these people whom I dont know very well as we only managed to make it to biblestudy less than a handful of times.

For those of you we will not see, please have a safe and Merry Christmas and we look forward to venturing with you into 2009.

Lots of Love
Karli